By Jayne Kingsley
Recently, I've found myself with time to kill on Saturdays in the city and being the book lover that I am, I've been spending that time perusing the fabulous offerings of local book stores. What's struck me, is the blurring lines of romance book covers and just how the hell I'm meant to understand the 'reader promise' from some of the new trends that have emerged.
With that in mind, I thought I’d delve into a bit of research about how romance covers have evolved over time.
Let’s start with the good ol’ ‘bodice ripper’ or ‘clinch cover’ as they were affectionately known. What’s not to love, right? The Fabio-esque male and his leading lady with luscious locks whose clothes clearly weren’t made well, since they always seemed to fall off at his one saucy wink. Too much? Fair. Back in the day this was the epitome of the romance novel – no confusion over the reader promises here. Truth – I have quite a few of these in storage
Moving on, and we start to see the rise in steamy and erotic romance, their covers depicted by suggestive single item objects and dark backgrounds. I can still recall when I was first told about the Fifty Shades phenomenon. Being a massive Twilight fan at the time (team Edward, always and forever), when I looked up Fifty Shades my immediate thought was that it was another vampire novel (I was really into Twilight so completely misread the situation). Reading the first few pages I kept waiting for the penny to drop… and it did… or should I say the whip did, not so much the penny. I’d based my entire thought process about the first Fifty Shades book on the front cover. I’d bought the e-book version, as it was the fastest copy of the book I could get, so I didn’t bother to read the blurb. That single object, dark mysterious cover had me sure that it was going to be a billionaire, hotter than Hades, vampire romance. My bad.
Of course, there has always been the wonderful realistic depiction of an in-love couple on the front cover – screaming ‘read me if you want the romance promise of HEA’. These are a favourite of mine, and a large portion of the romances that I own have this style of cover. The slightly varied version that is still strong and has stayed within the ‘reader promise’ guidelines is rural romance – where we have a lovely, picturesque background graced with a main character – often a wholesome female lead or rugged handsome man.
Authors such as Emily Henry, Ali Hazelwood, and Sally Thorne are just some of the names attributed to the great rise of the illustrated cover, which has been the dominant romance cover rising trend since 2020. The bright, composite, happy colours, bold font and illustrated couple are eye-catching, and are now synonymous with romantic comedy style romances with a HEA promise.
This brings me to where I start to come unstuck with a cover. The title and author name are usually clues that it’s a romance, but the actual cover image leaves me a little stumped. Take for example, the beautiful watercolour covers. I first picked up Becka Mack’s novel ‘Consider Me’ at the airport. I was drawn to the watercolour illustration and was intrigued about the type of book. I had assumed maybe a sweet small-town romance or women’s fiction. You know what they say about assuming! 'Consider Me' is a sports ice hockey romance, quite a steamy one.
These covers below—text heavy, devoid of characters—have been popping up all over the place, and without reading the book I am left wondering if I’m going to be getting a steamy romance, sweet romance, young adult romance, cowboy romance or something else entirely.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a complaint. I’m loving the variety of covers that are out in the wonderful world of romance at present. The popularity of the genre and shift in covers is, I believe, creating a wider readership, allowing for more reading in public without the fear of censorship or judgement. It also gives me more reason to try new authors; and let’s face it, it’s always good to have another reason to buy more romance books, right?
**all images and photo credits contained in this blog post are courtesy of https://www.amazon.com/**
Hi Jayne, Lovely to see you back blogging on the Breathless page. I enjoyed your post and it made me think of the covers I've been given over the years. I think it's worth noting that authors don't have a tremendous amount of say in the cover that ends up on the book. The first cover I had - Mistaken Identity - the couple both had on hospital wristbands, making me wonder whether they'd escaped from an asylum! The second cover - Echoes of the Heart - a lot of readers absolutely loved and thought the model reminded them of 'Mr Big' from Sex in the City. The way he was looking down and frowning (very troubled), very naughtily made me want to caption it: "Where is it? I know I had it last time I looked!". I chose the cover models for my next book "Roses for Sophie" so I was happy with that one! I recently asked for my rights back and was granted them, so now I've designed a new cover. Over the 20 books, some have hit the mark, others haven't. One phase of romance book covers that always stood out was the trend to chop of the male model's head and just leave the bare or partly bare torso/the tuxedo and undone tie! Now, the cartoon covers are very much in trend. I wonder how much readers really do judge a book by its cover?
ReplyDeleteThe wristbands comment gave me a giggle! It does make you wonder how many small things on a cover might be noticed by some and unnoticed by others. I know I judge covers for authors I don’t know - authors known to me I find I don’t notice the cover as much. So many changing trends for covers though.
DeleteI’ve been known to buy books simply for the pretty print on the pages :)
Hi Jayne, I love your post! I've been a romance reader since my teens, and wow, that's a long time - and haven't covers changed over the years? I find it funny how I can say 'I LOVE that cover' and someone else says 'Really? it's awful, I prefer something else'. No pleasing everyone. Whatever it is, a good cover will always sell more books. Or, if the author has a following and the name is in big print on the cover, it's going to sell no matter what it looks like. Oh, a new (insert author name here)? SOLD! To be honest I think I like the 'in love' couples and the illustrated covers the most. Always drawn to the promise of what looks like a lovely HEA. I'm also partial to a bit of glittery stuff, gold highlights or whatever, something that catches the light, and aren't those new books with sprayed edges the absolute bomb? Stunning. Just line them up on my shelf please. I also love detail like having a library or bookshop on the cover (ooh, my people), cute animals, crafty stuff, luscious food - they all catch my eye. I'm like, stand aside, handsome hero, and just let me see what those books are on the shelf behind you. I was given a beautiful book for Christmas called Christmas Joy by Mary-Anne O'Connor, and the heroine was wearing a beautiful gold (highlighted) frock, with decorations all around the edge, snow and a Christmas tree. It truly sparkled in the light. One of the nicest covers I've ever seen. Then I read Alchemised by SenLinYu (gorgeous darkish purplish cover, heroine in a red dress alone beyond huge iron gates, sprayed edges). It looked amazingly moody and dark - and was. I love this topic and can't wait to hear what others say. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMiranda xx
Now I need to go track both those books down - your cover descriptions have me sold! I adore the new sprayed edges, it’s on my list to investigate businesses that do those so I can create some special edition covers for my royal series. Just need to find a few more hours in the day somewhere :)
DeleteI have those first two covers on my shelf too. totally agree with the reader promise in a cover. You used to be able to tell a genre by the font also.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Fifty Shades of Grey, it initially did start as a Twilight fanfiction, called Master of the Universe by Snowqueens Icedragon.
ReplyDeleteRegarding covers, I personally do not like the illustrated, cartoony covers. Unless it's an author I've read before, I tend to bypass them - depends on the blurb.
Hi Jayne. I have to say I have very rarely been drawn to a book by its cover. Titles are what pull me closer, and if not the title then it's author name if they are a favourite of mine. Also, strangely, the illustrated covers turn my attention away, likely because I get an impression of the books being like comedy, and I'm really not into comedy. Having said that, I found I do very much like many of the covers of the current favourite genre, Romantasy. I picked one up because of the cover and loved the mix of fantasy, paranormal and romance, so I'm reading more of them now.
ReplyDelete